[HN Gopher] Stamp collections are fetching whopping prices, but ...
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Stamp collections are fetching whopping prices, but clubs need new
members
Author : adrian_mrd
Score : 28 points
Date : 2021-10-27 15:07 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.abc.net.au)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.abc.net.au)
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| My grandfather recently died and left behind collections that we
| sold off. When you spend your life collecting things you really
| do build yourself around it. I was very excited and volunteered
| to take his national geographic collection until I realized that
| it would essentially take two entire rooms full of boxes with no
| walking space. His coin and stamp collections were also massive,
| heavy filing cabinets. Even selling them off is a massive chore,
| much less going through them to try and see where to continue it.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| My dad has one of those big coin collections. There are maybe a
| dozen or so coins in the whole thing that are really worth
| anything. The rest is several physical tons of 'that is going
| to take awhile to go through' and 'hey dad your retired why
| dont you sort your coins, oh I am leaving that to you'.
|
| I personally try to keep my physical collections small. Only a
| few items that I consider interesting I keep. Except my DVD
| collection, video games, and my wifes CD collection. I like
| them so I keep those. But if I stopped caring about it I would
| take an active interesting in getting rid of it. I do not want
| to burden someone else with my collection of junk. My personal
| coin collection if you went and spent it as cash I would be a
| bit upset but no real value would have been lost. The 50 or so
| coins I have are merely novelty not valuable and fit in a
| plastic cup.
| notyourday wrote:
| > Even selling them off is a massive chore, much less going
| through them to try and see where to continue it.
|
| Contrary to what people want to believe 99.99999% of all those
| collections are _priced per lb or kilo_.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > Even selling them off is a massive chore
|
| There are people who will give you a price to buy collections
| that you don't want to take the time to carefully catalogue for
| appraisal.
|
| Both you and them take a risk on the price being right, but
| then you save a lot of time.
| electroly wrote:
| I'm involved with an online stamp store for collectors. We
| estimate the average age of our customers is 70. The business has
| been around for 30+ years; a big contributor to customer
| attrition is death. I can't imagine the hobby surviving for
| another generation.
| stevoski wrote:
| This headline is quite inaccurate.
|
| Most stamp collections are worth a pittance, and worth far less
| than was spent on building them in the heyday of stamp
| collecting.
|
| The hobby mostly died out a couple of decades ago. Just a few
| diehards, and - as the article gets right - they are generally
| old.
| darthvoldemort wrote:
| What they really mean is that they need a new generation of
| Greater Fools to sell their collections to, otherwise the value
| of their collections will completely deflate.
|
| I've seen this exact same discussion on comic book boards that I
| frequent, where some collectors worry that Golden Age and Silver
| Age comics may drop in value because they don't have as much
| meaning to newer collectors, who buy Modern comics for different
| entirely reasons. It's kind of a funny discussion to me, since
| they are literally trying to keep a Ponzi scheme going at the
| expense of younger people and new collectors.
| 7402 wrote:
| In my experience, people don't collect stamps in the hopes of
| making a killing via a "Ponzi Scheme."
|
| They collect stamps because the hobby brings them joy and
| satisfaction. Even if they are mocked by others who don't
| understand how they could enjoy such a thing.
|
| It is not necessary to attribute to ulterior motives to what
| can be explained simply by different interests.
|
| I'm sure there are aging collectors who mistakenly think they
| are leaving a stamp collection that could be of financial value
| to their children, but it is likely that they also have the
| wistful albeit unlikely hope that someone of the next
| generation might take up the hobby that has given them
| pleasure.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| This is how I feel about collecting books. I have a nice
| collection of illustrated books from the Yellow Nineties.
| They are not a path for financial independence, but they are
| beautiful.
| llimos wrote:
| Everything is fetching whopping prices. There's just too much
| money around.
| ghaff wrote:
| While somewhat true in general, there isn't a lot of evidence
| in the article in support of the headline. Some high-end stamp
| collections have fetched good prices. OK.
|
| But at least for the population the article is talking about,
| interest is dwindling. And it's hard for me to believe that, in
| general, either stamp or coin collecting has the mainstream
| appeal that it once had.
| achenatx wrote:
| I personally try to collect nothing. I essentially "collect" two
| things 1) stocks 2) personal digital photos
|
| Every material thing you own can weigh you down. I try to make
| sure I use everything I own vs owning things just for the
| pleasure of owning them.
|
| I have pre kindle books that I wish I could convert to kindle.
|
| I wrote amazon suggesting I give them my books for free, then
| they give me the digital copy at a discount (maybe 50%?) At some
| point I might buy the kindle versions and then sell the books to
| a used bookstore (at 25%).
| Grakel wrote:
| I agree, and I think it's somewhat generational. My dad is now
| on social security, but he will stop at any yard sale. Or talk
| for hours about trying to get some piece of furniture from an
| acquaintance. His house is full of cheap crap I'm going to have
| to haul away.
| secondcoming wrote:
| Books are a nightmare when moving home. I see people with full
| bookshelves and I pity them. It's not like they read all the
| books either
| jacobolus wrote:
| > It's not like they read all the books either
|
| The point of having a library (personal or otherwise) is not
| to read every one of the books cover to cover. Knowing where
| to find a particular book and how to look up what you need
| inside is incredibly valuable. (Indeed, many books become
| _less_ useful to keep around after you have read them)
| ghaff wrote:
| I've slowly been trying to work down the amount of stored
| paper, including books, in my house. I haven't moved in a
| long time but, earlier in my life, I definitely put way too
| much effort into moving books and other heavy things from
| place to place.
| lapetitejort wrote:
| I recently dumped nearly all of my university papers and
| textbooks. That's one less solid box of tree that I need to
| lug from place to place only to forget about for half a
| decade at a time.
| klyrs wrote:
| I have many shelves of books. There's a few reference books
| that I haven't "read" because nobody sits down to read a CRC
| Handbook; a few textbooks I haven't read because they were
| aspirational purchases that are difficult to make time for; a
| dozen or so novels that will definitely get read in the next
| two years. If I don't like a novel enough to re-read it, it
| goes into a box, and gets returned to the next used bookstore
| I visit.
| williamtwild wrote:
| "It's not like they read all the books either"
|
| Not sure how you would come to this conclusion without
| knowing every person with a book collection. I know quite a
| few bookphiles that have read every single book on every
| shelf.
| poo-yie wrote:
| You're right that material things can weigh you down. However,
| in the case of stamps they're probably one of the smallest and
| lightest physical items one can collect.
| klyrs wrote:
| However, they aren't stored in an optimal packing, because
| that would ruin the stamps. They're stored in binders,
| increasing their weight and volume more than tenfold.
| thioordc wrote:
| Yeah 10 times a small number is still small.
| klyrs wrote:
| If you have a one-stamp collection, you're absolutely
| right. But collectors often end up with many boxes of
| binders.
| lapetitejort wrote:
| Element collecting, as practiced by Bill Gates, might be the
| lowest. Although collectors tend to horde 10^23 items more
| than needed.
| LurkingPenguin wrote:
| > Every material thing you own can weigh you down.
|
| Material things can also bring you...pleasure (to use your own
| word).
|
| Of course, there's a balance and it's horses for courses, but I
| think a lot of people would feel that limiting their ownership
| of "things" to only those that have utilitarian value would
| make life far less interesting if not outright dull.
|
| In the case of books, I enjoy the tactile sensation of a
| physical book, and find that physical books are easier on my
| eyes.
| poo-yie wrote:
| I love physical books too (and for the same reasons).
| timmg wrote:
| > I personally try to collect nothing.
|
| Have you seen the movie "Up in the Air"? Your comment reminded
| me of the speech George Clooney gave :)
| darthvoldemort wrote:
| I collect comic books, and I collect limited edition rock n
| roll photos.
|
| I do have a vast collection of digital comics, probably 250GB
| worth, but I also want the joy of actually owning some of them,
| looking at them, and reading them.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| The problem is if someone somewhere doesn't look after physical
| things that we can't replace... who will? Individuals can
| delegate it to others, but someone has to do it (if we want to
| keep historical things at all.)
| jetrink wrote:
| That's a great point. For example, I recently got back into
| film photography and I found that if you want to get a
| 40-year-old camera today, you'll probably be buying it from a
| collector. Without them, these wonderful, obsolete tools
| would have gone in the landfill long ago.
| ghaff wrote:
| There are definitely cameras that fall into the collectible
| category. But I would have thought that 1980-era DSLRs were
| still pretty available from used camera stores. (I haven't
| personally checked; maybe run-of-the-mill film cameras
| son't move quickly enough.)
| ghaff wrote:
| Duh. Not DSLRs of course. It's too ingrained at this
| point.
| poo-yie wrote:
| Good point! And there are many fantastic film cameras from
| long ago. I just bought a Nikon F2 film camera (my second)
| yesterday. Many of those old film cameras and such a joy to
| shoot with.
| beauzero wrote:
| Different US States do provide this function... One of the
| best (and the first 1901) is Alabama
| https://archives.alabama.gov/
| Brendinooo wrote:
| Bullion's a decent thing for grownups to collect. ROI isn't
| great, but it's not nothing, won't go to zero when a generation
| of enthusiast dies, and there are some beautiful coins out
| there.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| There is definitely a top-down cultural push to encourage
| regular people to stop owning things.
|
| We were told we'll own nothing and we'll be happy about it.
|
| I can't help but suspect that there is too much evolutionary
| programming to own resources for that to be a reality.
| timmg wrote:
| That's just so they can charge subscription fees.
|
| One day I'll figure out if my Youtube Music subscription cost
| more than I would have spent on buying all my music.
| ghaff wrote:
| I'm a bit torn with music streaming services. I probably
| subscribe more for the playlists and ability to try someone
| new than the music collection. I have a big collection,
| ripped and downloaded, but I decided it was too much
| trouble to systematically fill it out and curate it--at
| least for now.
| codetrotter wrote:
| YouTube Music, Spotify or Apple Music (whichever one you
| prefer) is definitely worth it to me.
|
| I listen to so much music from so many different artists
| all of the time. I could never afford to buy all of that
| music in a long long time. And Apple Music, just like
| Spotify that I used to use before it, helps me discover new
| music all of the time.
|
| Also, streaming music from service like these, is much more
| convenient than owning the music. More convenient than
| piracy even.
| tyrfing wrote:
| I've listened to 6000 songs by 1500 different artists in
| the last year, and that's a drastic undercount due to
| offline listening and youtube viewing that isn't reported
| to last.fm.
|
| Buying music can't compete with that. Just sourcing the
| downloads would be a huge burden.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| I find, just for me personally, there is not more than
| 1-2 _new_ songs I want to listen to per month. Buying the
| songs saves a few bucks (not a noticeable amount in my
| monthly budget to be honest) and also more directly funds
| the artist compared to streaming.
| [deleted]
| Stranger43 wrote:
| Stamp collection is one of those things that belongs to an
| particular period of change where things lined up to make it
| accessible and exiting at the same time, as the post war economy
| saw an book in people flying of to exotic destinations and
| sending postcards back to family and friends as Instagram and
| Facebook had yet to be invented. That faded as the exotic abroad
| became less exotic.
|
| Today you don't even need a actual stamp to sent an letter using
| the actual mail(see https://www.postnord.se/en/sending/letters-
| and-postcards/por... for example) so the hobby is bound to become
| more expensive and lets be honest what was the last time you got
| an postcard or for that matter an letter not sent by an bulk
| mailing operation containing boring bills or official documents.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Whoa, not sure what kind of folks you have around you and
| relationships with them, but when we travel (or on christmas,
| easter, etc) we send postcards to our closest friend and
| family. So do they.
|
| Its personal, I always draw little figures of me and my wife on
| the picture side, climbing mountains, swimming from sharks,
| paragliding etc. depending on situation.
|
| My parents have them all on the wall, so do some friends (well
| not _all_ of them). Its a small gift, showing we think about
| them not only by bombarding them with photos /videos all the
| time.
|
| Its a nice tradition, the best kind of mail you can get, and I
| see no reason stopping it.
| jmuguy wrote:
| I agree, I always love sending postcards when I travel. Its a
| shame that 99% of the physical mail any of us receive is
| trash.
|
| Particularly traveling internationally there will always be
| something awesome about being able to mail a postcard and
| give the recipient a little piece of the place where you're
| visiting.
| distances wrote:
| I agree! It's nowadays even a more special occasion to
| receive a postcard than it used to be. I make sure to send
| one from all my holidays for my grandparents and godchildren
| (which itself is a nice tradition, no need to be part of a
| church or make it religious -- kids love having their own
| uncle/aunt).
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| It does sounds like a nice tradition, but as a mid 30s
| American living on the coasts, I have never sent or received
| a postcard, nor seen one of my friends do it when we go on
| trips.
| ghaff wrote:
| It's certainly far less common than it used to be. Ditto
| for Christmas cards; I think maybe I get them from three
| people who aren't businesses that get money from me and
| often don't get around to sending any myself.
| zokier wrote:
| I find the trajectory between model railways and stamps sort of
| similar, in both cases they are linked to a phenomenon that has
| diminished from the popular view quite significantly and as
| such they as hobbies have waned also. Trains are not really the
| icon they were 50-100 years ago, nor are people interacting
| with stamped mail anymore.
|
| Ham radio is sort of another hobby that kinda falls into the
| same category, although maybe for slightly different reason?
| But there too, just talking to random/local people kinda lost
| its luster; people barely even make phone calls these days
| anymore.
| bhouston wrote:
| Stamps are 1900s' NFTs.
| VonGuard wrote:
| Incorrect: stamps have a very distinct use. NFTs are just
| humongous numbers that are metaphorically associated with
| some.... thing.
| manquer wrote:
| Stamps had a function, now they are mostly decorative.
|
| You can print postage with unique number. Stamps are just one
| method for postal service to identify your package and its
| payment and transportation mode.
| poo-yie wrote:
| US stamps of today seem to be far less decorative (talking
| about the design on the stamp itself) than ones I've seen
| from days gone by.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Stamps are _fungible_ tokens though. The whole point of NFTs is
| they 're _non-fungible_ tokens - that 's what the N stands for.
| electroly wrote:
| In terms of collecting, stamps are nonfungible. They are
| individually graded for the centering of the image, the
| condition of the perforations, the condition of the gum, and
| sometimes the novelty of the cancellation (if it's used). The
| price of a stamp is based both on the rarity of the stamp in
| general and on the grading of the particular stamp. When you
| buy a stamp, you're buying the exact pictured stamp[0], not a
| fungible equivalent.
|
| [0] Usually. Sometimes people will buy "spacefillers" where
| they don't care about the quality, they just want something
| cheap to put in the spot in their collection. These are often
| unpictured and you get whatever the dealer sends you. These
| could be considered fungible.
| klyrs wrote:
| An uncancelled stamp is technically fungible, but a
| cancelled stamp is, well, funged. It never ceases to amuse
| me that this can increase the stamp's value.
| electroly wrote:
| Uncancelled ("mint") stamps are still individually graded
| for centering, gum, and perforation. This probably
| matters less on modern stamps (vs. classic stamps) but
| nobody collects modern stamps.
| munificent wrote:
| It's hard to imagine stamp collecting not dwindling as a hobby
| over time given that email and other digital communication has
| supplanted almost all personal letter writing. In the absence of
| that, there's so little emotional attachment left to physical
| mail and stamps that few will care to collect them.
| LammyL wrote:
| Canada had a renewed interest in stamp collecting among young
| people in the late 1980s after the TV movie Tommy Tricker and the
| Stamp Traveller came out. But it died out pretty quickly as
| Canada Post switched to printed stamps, and as kids grew out of
| it.
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